A Pair of Monsters: Preludes
by Higekimaru
Summary: This is a series of vignette-ish stories concerning notable original characters for my other story, A Pair of Monsters. It may be read alone, and I encourage you to do so, that I might benefit from others' opinions, but if you like these characters, feel free to checkout my flagship work-in-progress. Ratings of each chapter vary, so I'll play it safe, although it deserves this one.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello, faithful readers and any newcomers whose curiosity I've piqued. This is the first of a series of short chapters about notable players who will soon enter on stage in my other story, which I know I should soon update, but likely won't until I get at least three quarters of the way through this collection. This first OC is based off of the concept submitted by Komamura's Son. I hope I haven't ruined the significance this character holds for him by altering it too much. Thanks go to WeepingCadaver, for beta services, and to maybeillbebaldo and Komamura's son for their recent support, as well as my other supporters Lord Ice of Termina, , AlexanderxKiba, and Waywardneko. Knowing that my updates, however infrequent they may be, interest people means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy this. Without further ado:**

**I don't own Bleach, only the terrifying knowledge of my own fragility. **

**Inari Roy I: The Fox and The Lamb**

Inari Roy had, for the entirety of his nearly two-hundred-fifty years of existence, been a thief and a cheat. Like anyone with that amount of time to hone his criminal skill-set, he was quite good at it—excellent, in fact. He'd surpassed his mentor long ago. He was also in a bit of a jam.

The man wore a simple robe over a baggy shirt and dingy trousers often wore by the dwellers of the Rukon, and loosely held a hemp bag laden with tools and clothing in the bony fingers of his left hand. An expression of genuine affability and embarrassment crinkled his eyes and upturned the corners of his mouth as he made his final appeal to the occupants of the worker house he had just exited.

"So, if you'd just look the other way this time, boys, I'd be greatly obliged. I mean, aren't we all just struggling to get by out here?"

A crescent of dust from the streets of the Rukongai's 45th District blew past him, stirring his pale brown robe as if in agreement with his words.

The quintet of men whose scant valuables he held didn't appear so moved. They silently continued to move forward, pressing Inari against a squat wooden building which was as dusty as the rest of the town. The sun beat down with enough force to make it feel as if Inari's rust-colored hair was on the verge of combustion.

As the semicircle of men continued to tighten, the smile dropped from Inari's face, and the false warmth in his honey-colored eyes chilled. "Ah well. I tried."

Dashing to his left, Inari tried an escape attempt from the group of men, only to be halted when the one closest to his position, who was also the brawniest, brought his arm down in an arc of dust-scented flesh. He didn't notice that Inari's expression of steely calm had suddenly, if only for an instant, become a vulpine smirk.

_Perfect._

Inari tossed his sack past his adversary while simultaneously bringing up his right arm to redirect the momentum of the man's swing towards the ground, leaving the attacker open.

Inari took the opportunity with gusto as he delivered a fast but powerful punch between the man's legs before continuing his trajectory to collect his prize and rounding a corner.

He didn't stop running, and neither did the other four men. Panting, Inari turned his head to set eyes on his victims, casting droplets of sweat off the ends of his chin-length hair. Turning into a crowded street, the thief vanished in the throng before they could reach him.

Quickly and easily mimicking the attitudes of the typical worker returning home, Inari began plotting the route to take to his fence's hovel, while continuing to search for any trace of his pursuers.

_Maybe I'll go and get some candied fruit for Mai if there's enough money left over. She'd like that, _he thought as he wound his way to a wooden doorway whose filthy state created its own atmosphere of dilapidation. Taking a moment to center himself and fix his false-smile on, Inari rapped lightly on the door of the hovel.

**ѠѠѠ**

"Fifty-five kan?" repeated Inari, grinning cheerily.

_ "_That's right, Inari-chan. I'd give your old man—rest his soul, and may he never hollow—the same deal. Fifty-five for fifty-five's worth," said a man in rags, reeking of cheap alcohol. He parted his curtain of greasy hair and grinned to show a toothless mouth lined by grey gums.

Inari's warm smile didn't waiver. "That's not quite good enough. Why, it's not even enough to buy three decent meals." His grin grew further, still seemingly sincere, but now becoming far too wide to be normal.

_Mai..._

The girl had changed him for the better. Inari knew he was still a rogue and a bastard, but thanks to the daughter that had been forced upon him, he was a bastard with someone he loved. Someone he wanted to do right by. It had become his life mission to save up enough money to move Mai into one of the higher districts—money was one thing a criminal could find easily in the outer districts, so long as he sided with (or betrayed) the right people.

"I don't see why you don't have that little firecracker of yours picking up some slack," commented the fence, counting out the bills for his payment. "Or just steal the food."

Inari shook his head, dull teeth shining in what little light was present. "No. She won't eat stolen food, and I'm never going to lie to Mai or do anything to make her think stealing is alright. And she's only eight, anyway."

"I killed my first man when I ten."

Inari grabbed the thin sheaf of bills as he passed the bedraggled man and flicked through them without comment. He turned to leave, the smile dropping off of his face as me made a final remark.

"Not everybody's a psychopath like you, Gazra."

Inari remembered finding Mai, and the changes he'd been through since then. With a rueful chuckle at the inconstancy of his character, he began making his way to his home out of district, lost in his own recollections.

**ѠѠѠ**

He'd found her two years ago on one of his forays further out in the Rukongai—some would pay a thief good money for a rival's valuables or life, and the outer districts were where those clients tended to gather. Inari had been on the return trip, with blood on a sleeve from one of the better paying alternatives to thievery and a full belly to show for it, when the dry and dirty curtain of squalor that seemed to be painted over everything he'd ever known was torn aside for the briefest of moments by the pitiful screaming of an infant. There wasn't a soul in sight, and the cries were already weak. He had paused at the time, golden eyes conflicted.

_A kid'll be a burden._

The screaming was stopped momentarily by a series of quiet, dry, racking coughs. Then it redoubled in volume and urgency, and Inari found himself moving outside of his own volition to pick up the dusty bundle lying in a culvert on the edge of the road. His dirty, chipped thumbnail pulled aside a tattered blanket the color of the barren soil it was inundated with to reveal the reddened face of a baby, bawling mercilessly, and in bad need of a changing. Inari fingered the knife at his waist, then the pouch of kan bills and coins concealed inside his belt, before skimming his fingers over the rough, home-spun fabric of his clothing to arrive at his flask of water.

The infant lay in his arms, a single, alarmingly thin arm waving feebly at him. Inari hesitated, hand hovering over the water. Gradually, the baby's last wails thinned out into the silence of fevered rest, and its eyelids fluttered, lashes closing over brown eyes.

Inari's eyes softened from the hard chips of topaz that had become their default as he unstoppered the container. He poured a miniscule trickle into the child's thin and parched mouth.

_Looks like I need to learn how to change her, _thought Inari, never one to remain serious for long, bemusedly contemplating the consequences of his decision.

Inari's new traveling companion sat wide-eyed and unclothed in the soft grass adjacent to a clear stream while the man essayed cleaning her blanket enough to make it at least somewhat soft and malleable. Her condition had appalled Inari—himself a man who had been forced to harden himself to the suffering of others—and for good reason. The unnamed girl wasn't just malnourished. She was covered in her own excrement, clearly ill, and had been left with several bedsores as a result of neglect. A gentle washing, and the sacrifice of half of her dust-caked blanket, had been enough make her skin relatively clean; but Inari knew that was the smallest problem out of a list he now faced.

His first teacher, the man who had taught him all about how to pick a pocket or surreptitiously pry open primitive locks, had been like a father to him. And it was under his tutelage that Roy had first discovered an affinity for speech. The words simply came to him, and when they did, talking soothed away all of his troubles. It always had, except for when the old man's addiction had finally caught up to him and Inari (his father's family name) had found him on the side of a road in the outer Rukongai. Inari didn't like to talk about that. Now all he had left was the old man's name.

Inari looked up at the girl, who had been possessed by a stone her thin hand had picked up from the edge of the stream. She gurgled happily as she played with the irregular grey ellipse, and Inari smiled a smile of genuine warmth at the sight.

"Yeah, I did the right thing picking you up, little iwa-chan. Shame how I found you. What happened to your pappy and mammy, I wonder? Oh god, I'm taking a girl home and I don't even know her name."His smile became wry at his own thoughts, and he chuckled.

That hadn't happened for a while either.

Wringing the remaining half of her blanket dry, Inari approached her and put his shirt over her shoulders and wrapped her in it best he could. The girl began to cry as she lost her new favorite toy in the folds of the fabric while being swaddled, and Inari paused.

"Shit, what happened...Oh! Your stone!" Inari took the plaything out of the bottom of the crumpled shirt and resumed wrapping her. Task accomplished, he returned the totem to the child and admired his handiwork. The slightly stained fabric of his shirt had been fashioned into a cocoon held shut by the shirt's baggy sleeves. Inari frowned as the child fussed in her new garment.

"You look like a Mina to me. Or what about Sunayo?" He scooped the child up with one lean and muscled arm. "No. With that brown hair and eyes, you're a Mai all the way." Setting the child's weight against one hip, Inari scowled suddenly, eyes darkening and hardening.

_What the fuck am I doing, pretending to be a good dad?_

He set the still-bundled child on the ground and drew his knife—the same one he'd used to kill anyone that threatened him—and angled it to make the life-altering cut.

The blood-spattered sleeve of his shirt was left lying on the bank of that stream as Inari and Mai made their way home together for the first time.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hello, anybody who cares to read this. I experimented with my storytelling style with this one, and jumped around quite a bit temporally. These characters are all original, and are some of my favorites. The themes in this chapter involve prostitution and poverty, and arguably deserve the M rating. The next one's in the pipe, you'll be happy to know. Also, if you're particularly impatient for me to return to working on _A Pair of Monsters, _I will if you let me know. But I want this series of vignettes to be wrapped up—these characters might not hold center stage, but thematically speaking, they're important to the story, and I care about them.**

**I don't own Bleach; only my OCs and their quiet desperation.**

**Naimura Kiyohime and Masumi I: The Fraility of Innocence**

Masumi's hand fell from the still-inflamed brand on her forehead as she contemplated the future. She turned flat, pale eyes to Kiyohime, and recalled the promise she'd made to her friend's mother.

**ѠѠѠ**

Her name was Kīrosora Sukiko, of the reigning Kīrosora crime family. With a body that had filled out well after being afforded the luxury of the balanced diet offered to the whores of the top yakuza, she was gorgeous, and she knew it. Using the entirety of her considerable pull and feminine wiles, she adopted Masumi as her own and kept her on a diet that at least was able to sustain her for most of her life while fending off men interested in the child's unsullied beauty. Then, when Masumi was just on the cusp of turning ten, Sukiko became pregnant by Kīrosora Kazuo, the oyabun of the Kīrosora family.

It was a hard pregnancy. Even being the oyabun's favorite, there was no way Inuzuri could offer a pregnant woman the nutrients needed to carry a child to full, healthy term. That was why Sukiko, eight months later, went into labor. In short order, she was laid out on a bench and her legs spread like they had been so many other times before, for an entirely different purpose. Masumi had been pulled along in the rush of yakuza members and working women as they set up what passed for a private birthing area for the mother. The midwife followed suit, hiking up a tattered skirt and chasing after them on bare feet, shouting orders as Sukiko's cries grew shriller and louder as her pain reached new heights, ringing out for kilometers.

**ѠѠѠ**

The affair was over within two hours. Sukiko's body simply didn't have the fortitude to keep up the effort for any longer than that, regardless of how much she wanted to. Masumi stood at the top of the wooden bench, damp hand in Sukiko's as the black woman's sweaty face turned to her, eyes wild and unfocused. Sukiko pulled her adoptive daughter close and whispered into her ear the last words she would ever speak.

"I love you, baby girl. Take care of yourself and my baby, and keep your head down. Name her Kiyohime if she's a girl, and Daichi if he's a boy."

Blue eyes wide and watery, Masumi nodded quickly at her, blonde locks swinging. "I promise, mum."

Wet brown eyes met hers in a room silent save for Sukiko's pained gasps and the clattering of the midwife setting out what passed for sharp tools in the penniless hellhole of Inuzuri.

In that instant, Sukiko looked upon Masumi's face, schooled into the shell of someone familiar with human misery, and frowned softly.

_I couldn't keep her safe._

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," sighed Sukiko as she closed her eyes. "Good luck."

A sobbing Masumi was led out as a man placed a cloth filled with distilled alcohol over Sukiko's mouth and nose to dull the pain.

A scream penetrated the frail hands clamped over Masumi's ears as the midwife made the first cut, intent on saving the child.

**ѠѠѠ**

One did not become the leader of a notable Rukongai criminal organization by being overly sentimental, and Kīrosora-oyabu was no exception. Upon Sukiko's death, he had promptly taken on another favorite woman of his as a frequent lover, if such a morally degenerate man was capable of taking a lover in the first place. Despite the fact that his daughter had inherited his notable spiritual power, Kīrosora evinced no interest in her—as a woman, she would never be able to ascend the ranks of the family above that of common whore. So it fell to the cadre of women that worked for Kīrosora to care for the infant, whom was raised on what little milk could be produced by the youngest and best-nourished members of their group. Traveling monks, who were few and far between, would say prayers over her for health, vitality, and prosperity as the girl continued to grow older. Four years after Kiyohime was born, Masumi took on her first job.

The girl, barely into her teens, was young, and frail, and inexperienced, but she was easily her adoptive mother's equal in natural beauty, and it showed in her success. She could net more men in a night than women with twice her experience. That popularity was the epitome of a mixed blessing.

Being used, night after night, by men that were even more emaciated and filthy than she was took its toll on the adolescent Masumi—her eyes dulled further, she was saddled with the deep fatigue of one who has been robbed of the last vestiges of innocence, and her face became lined with the marks of her grief as the years passed.

The first job hadn't been so bad. It had scared her, and revolted her, but even then Masumi knew to place practicality before feelings. That was why she swallowed—whatever nutrients she could get, she'd take. After the man had been forced by one of Kīrosora's enforcers to pay, the madame of the brothel, Sukiko's aged spiritual successor, had taken her aside and explained about the diseases that a girl could get if the men were allowed to have their way with them. It hadn't sunk in until the madame (Obāchan, they called her) had presented it as a threat to Kiyohime's safety if Masumi fell ill. She took the words to heart, regardless of how hungry and empty she felt from that day out.

Every year, every day, every time a monster of a man thrusted roughly into her as he came with a gasping rush, or guided her long blonde hair to force her head down into his lap, Masumi blocked out the chill of disgust, of horrifyingly wet sensations and flavors with one thought:

_Kiyohime._

The girl was beautiful, and innocent, and filled with a kind of gentle happiness despite her circumstances that Masumi swore she would do anything to protect. Knowing Sukiko had felt much the same about her, and failed to protect her from the life she now lived, Masumi began planning to keep Kiyohime safe.

**ѠѠѠ**

Once, while Sukiko had used a hand-whittled comb to comb Masumi's hair, she had told Masumi about the shinigami.

"_You know, baby," she murmured while teasing out a knot in the girl's hair, "there are places other than Inuzuri. I'd like it if you could see them someday."_

_ Solemn, even at the tender age of six, Masumi peered up at her through blonde bangs that shimmered palely in the day's wan sunlight. "I know, mummy."_

_ Sukiko smiled. _She sounds so much like an adult,_ she thought with a trace of sadness._

_"There're these people called shinigami," she began. "They live really far to the west, in a great big walled city. They're tall, and strong, and have these amazing powers. I once saw one kill a hollow. It was way off in the distance, but I couldn't help but watch anyway."_

_ Masumi stared at her, spellbound by the story. She knew what hollows were; those masked monstrosities that ate people sometimes. They didn't seem like they could be killed. "What happened, mummy?"_

_ "Well, the shinigami killed it with his sword, and the thing vanished. Just into thin air. They have these magic swords, you know. Whenever they want, the sword turns into another weapon."_

_ "Really?"_

_ Sukiko smiled. Masumi had always loved stories. It was just a shame she had so few happy ones to share._

_ "Really. This one was a great big club."_

Masumi had thought about the Shinigami a lot as a child, and still did. She wondered if their lives were as exciting as they seemed, if they had enough food, and how they got their magical swords.

She also wondered why they didn't help people like her, how much power you had to have to become one, if Kiyohime might have enough, and what it would be like to eat more than two or three times a week without feeling disgusted by herself and the filth of the touch of men she didn't know.

**ѠѠѠ**

A dry twig snapped under a foot wrapped only in the bark of a tree as Masumi wound her way to the swathe of dirt she and Kiyohime called home. A pale hand swept a shank of limp blonde hair over her ear as she pursed her lips and looked down on the sleeping form of an eight year-old Kiyohime.

The woman began preparing a breakfast for her charge, moving quietly as not to wake her. A handful of grass and tree bark—as much as the two could eat without becoming ill themselves—and a shallow bowl full of water, made from tree bark and held together with mud painted on the outside.

Kiyohime murmured something.

"What's that, Hime?"

"I said, how was work?" repeated the girl drowsily.

Lines tightened around Masumi's eyes. "Alright. I got us a bowl of fresh water, and in a few days, we might be able to get a bowl of rice."

Kiyohime bolted upright, excitement etched in the cast of her mouth. Her bushy black hair bounced as if in sympathy with her excitement, and Masumi was unable to hold back a tired smile as she embraced her.

"Yay!" cried the child, fatigue forgotten. "Remember the last time we got rice, 'Sumi?"

It had taken her a dozen jobs to get the Kīrosora family to give it to her as payment.

"Yeah, I remember. Here's some grass, and drink this water. Then how 'bout some storytime?"

Kiyohime's skeletal face split into a smile. "I love ya, 'Sumi."

"You too, 'Hime."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This is my poor attempt at horror, so it's earned every bit of its M rating. It includes fairly severe violence, so consider this a trigger warning. Also, since most of my readers (all twelve of you) seem disinterested in this series, so after I finish the other two I've started, I'm going to return to working on A Pair of Monsters, interspersed with Shiba household drabbles, because they got one vote in the poll I have on my profile. If you'd rather I just continue my main storyline without the drabbles, then let me know through my poll or another means. Just no red paint splattered over the walls of my bedroom at three in the morning. That's Urahara's thing.**

**I don't own Bleach or any published media series, only my aspirations of dubious attainability and durability.**

**Wile Hershel I: The Victim**

"Up, daddy!"

Smiling indulgently, a man wearing a stout white top hat over stark white hair and silvery eyes stooped and picked up his son. Swinging him around to sit on his shoulders, the man playfully doffed his hat and looked up at his son. "How was your day, Hershel?"

The boy giggled and laced his hands in his father's hair. "It was fun! Senna-chan and Moira-chan and Kohuait-chan and I played a new game I invented, and Daihata-sensei taught us about butterfilies!"

"Oh? And what did you learn about butterflies?" asked the father as he and his child approached the family complex.

As his son chattered away, the white-haired man nodded surreptitiously as his number-one bodyguard and lieutenant fell into step beside the pair.

"Hey tyke, Daddy's got some business to deal with, okay?"

Hershel broke off, pouting slightly, and nodded. "Okay, daddy. Promise you'll come back after you're finished?"

"Of course I promise. Tell Mommy I'll be home for dinner."

**ѠѠѠ**

Publicly, Wile Muren was the head of the eponymous Hakutategami organization—one of the Rukongai's largest and richest families, comprised of everything from hardened yakuza thugs to farmers that paid annual tithes for protection from bandits and seated shinigami officers in the collective's various branches.

On a personal level, the man was a cutthroat who would willingly stab a rival, an ally or even a fellow clansman in the back—literally—if it meant protecting or advancing the prospects of his branch or house. Which brings us to the business he had left his son's company for.

Inside a basement of one of the many buildings within his possession as Head of the House Ginito, a blond man raised a bloody and tearstreaked face to seek out Muren's frigid eyes.

"Please, please, I'll give you all of my businesses...oh God...I have a family!"

Muren, removing his hat, looked down at the man coldly, the frozen grey of his eyes a perfect countermeasure to the wide blue eyes of his victim, the room's sparse lighting reflecting eerily in his pupils.

"This isn't about business."

He drew a wakizashi from the folds of his vest, and expertly pushed it out from its sheath with a well-trimmed thumbnail.

"This is, as you very well know, about sending a message," said Muren, nodding at his lieutenant to release the man's arms.

Unable to support himself, the bruised masses of flesh that were the captive's legs buckled, and he fell forward onto his elbows, screaming in agony as his limbs bent in all the wrong places. The wretch coughed up a puddle of bile in response to the insurmountable pain, and collapsed into it facedown, too injured to fight back.

Muren laced his fingers into the captives hair the way Hershel had to him only minutes earlier and jerked savagely, lifting the man's face, red and coated with his own fluids, off the floor. Muren's mouth found a way to the man's ear—he was sobbing now, pathetically—and continued his speech almost disinterestedly. "And unfortunately, you are my chosen stationary."

With a heave, he pulled the man over backwards, ignoring the inhuman scream of anguish that issued forth from the mass of inflammation and terror that was the thing beneath him. "You're my stationary because you made the message necessary initially. I think that's fair."

The wakizashi was sunk centimeters into the victim's bare chest and mercilessly dragged horizontally the length of a hand, jumping over the sternum and leaving an ugly slit from which blood poured in a too-reflective waterfall over the man's scant oblique muscles. Like some malevolent nurse, Muren's lieutenant restrained the man's arms and shoulders with his knees and hands, looking on in an almost lackadaisical manner as the second cut was made, and the tortured man's screams echoed in the darkened chamber before being muffled by a dirty rag.

The message was completed nearly thirty-five minutes later; twelve minutes after the blond had expired from blood loss and trauma. Regretfully, Muren looked at the bloodied knees and shins of his trousers.

_ Good cotton's hard to come by, seventh district or not._

He met the eyes of his lieutenant calmly. "Will you be joining us for dinner?"

The hulking man looked at him askance over the corpse he stood at the head of. "You know I don't need to eat."

"It doesn't hurt to be polite, my friend. And Hershel loves playing hide-and-seek with you."

The lieutenant smiled slightly in assent. "For little Hershel-kun."

**ѠѠѠ**

Muren smiled at Hershel across the table. Giggling, the boy peeked out from behind his storybook at his father and adoptive uncle, who sat to the right of his employer. Muren crossed his eyes to another chorus of laughter. His wife, a kind woman named Henrietta, bustled into the room supporting a pan of cabbage served over pork. She ignored the tongue Hershel wagged at it.

"How'd the day's business go, sweetie?"

Muren smiled at her warmly. "It wasn't pretty, but I'd say I made my point. I think Hershel's got a bright future set up for him."

Henrietta's soft brown eyes hardened. "I'm glad."

For a moment, the only noise aroound the table was the sound of food being served with a wooden spoon.

Hershel looked at his mother, confused by the atmosphere. "What's wrong, Mommy?"

She leaned over and kissed his neatly parted white hair.

"Nothing. Mommy and Daddy just need to talk about something."

The boy's snowy eyebrows drew together, turning his infantile face into a vaguely simian mask for an instant. "Okay."

The dinner was finished quickly, the two men amusing Hershel while the table was cleared. Muren passed a thin cigarette through the flame of a candle as he watched his friend and son play. The sight of the ursine giant doubled over to peek around a corner as his son tiptoed behind him elicited a chuckle from him. Muren felt a warmth in his chest, and knew that he'd done the right thing today. Nobody was going to infringe on his family's businesses or employees, and that was final. He made a mental note to send his message the following night.

A gentle hand came to rest on Muren's arm.

"You don't think it was necessary."

"No, I know that you had your reasons, Muren, but I'll be damned if Hershel's raised thinking that things like _that _are decent or acceptable."

His mouth curled upwards slightly, a ribald grin. He'd always loved the fact that Henrietta had never been afraid to speak her mind. Despite the considerable power he wielded, both spiritually and politically, she'd had never once backed down from a fight, and he loved her for it. Having an adviser who actually advised you was invaluable for any lord, criminal or otherwise, and was unfortunately hard to come by for one as famous (or feared) as Muren.

"We'll have that talk when the day comes, Henrietta," he promised, clasping her smaller hand in his.

"No. Muren, that's not good enough. I respect that there are things that you have to do, but this isn't one of them, and I won't let you make it such!" she countered, voise rising in volume with each word. Hershel and his surrogate uncle Imashinu disappeared into the twilit streets, hand in hand for safety.

Even though the witnesses had departed for the moment, Henrietta took the time to tie back her hair in a ponytail to calm herself before continuing. "There are better things in store for Hershel. I know it."

He knew where this was going.

"Oh? And what are those?"

Henrietta took a seat in Muren's lap, leaning backwards against him as they watched the dancing shadows cast by the room's candles wage war with each other. For another moment, the two lovers remained silent, appreciation for the other understood, though unvoiced.

"The Shinigami Academy. He's more powerful than either of us, and you know it. Our boy could become a seated officer, a captain even! And you'd have a friend in a lofty place to boot."

_She makes a good point or two._

Muren pinched out the cigarette stub thoughtfully. "It's his decision. When the time comes, we'll let him decide. It's his life, after all."

She placed a chaste kiss on his lips before rising and taking a bucket from a closet. "That's fair, I suppose. Now get up and help me with the dishes."

Muren smiled once more.

_ Never afraid of me._

**ѠѠѠ**

Hershel looked fearfully at the sliver of the moon hanging in the sky. Its constancy and removal from the immediacy of his life taunted and disturbed him, silently denying him the acknowledgment he craved.

Pulling a stuffed ape into his arms, he remained kneeling on his bed. A phantasmal anxiety haunted him, keeping sleep at arm's length. He knew it was past midnight; his parents had fallen asleep some time ago. He'd stood at the side of their bed, stuffed doll in hand, and contemplated waking them.

_But for what? _His own self-critical voice had asked him, independent of his desires. _There's nothing wrong. You're just a baby scared of the dark. _He had pressed his lips together, and frowned. His Mommy and Daddy would be angry if he woke them, Hershel knew. Licking his lips, Hershel hesitated for a second longer, conflicted. Then he turned and silently returned to his own bed.

That had been an hour ago. That cold ball of anxiety remained, however, and wouldn't be resolved, no matter how much he tried. The ache in his throat grew impossible to ignore. Hershel clutched the toy closer and thought of the songs his Mommy would sing while he got ready for classes at the local temple.

He followed the words along in his head, too frightened to hum them.

_Green, green, green are my clothes,_

_ Green, green, green's all I have._

_ I love anything that's green,_

_ Because my love's a hunter._

The song brought him a very small measure of relief, but not enough to keep the tears from quietly spilling out.

**ѠѠѠ**

Not far away, a white creature slipped out of a patch of soft soil near the corner of the Ginitofamily compound. Thin, tubular, and eyeless, the thing resembled nothing more than an extremely large and pale worm with several feelers trailing from its sides that lazily twitched, searching for a hint of whatever the root-worm's choice of food was.

Writhing in the moonlight, the creature began slithering towards the nearest building—the one with the warm, sticky, and very much dead basement tenant. Elongating in an almost dreamlike movement, the monstrosity crawled beneath the heavy wooden door, and headed directly for the staircase leading to the building's cellar.

Its thin tentacles trailed across the unmoving frosted-over eyes of the blond man before easing between his limp lips and pulling the rest of its disgustingly phallic body in after them, feelers waving as it gained entry.

For a period of time, all was calm; the entire vision might have been nothing more than the product of a diseased mind.

Then, with an awful heaving, the corpse began to twitch, insensible skin tensing in response to internal pressure as dead muscles were consumed and replaced with the pallid tissues of the alien conqueror. Finally, nearly two hours after first making contact with the body, a white, viscuous liquid began pouring out of bloodless lips, moving with preternatural direction to cover the man's bruised face. There, it solidified in the form of a skeletal mask, black pools settling around now-empty eye sockets, complete with an oversized collection of thin, elongated teeth.

The hollowified corpse shrieked with the voices of dozens as it rose in its new body, flesh crumbling into dust to produce a hole piercing straight through its chest as the proto-hollow's tendrils spread out from the smooth edges of the wound new wound. Jerkily, the hollow began moving to leave the building, powerful reiatsu stirring detritus around it in a grey maelstrom. Carelessly, it beat through a wall and stepped forward.

Standing in the light of the moon, the hollow shrieked once more its bloodlust, loneliness, and despair.

**ѠѠѠ**

Hershel sat bolt upright in his bed, feeling urine begin to pool in his sheets; its sour scent strong in his nostrils, he blushed in humiliation, but paid it no mind. He knew exactly what he had heard. Tentatively, Hershel put his feet onto the ground, one after another. He'd seen hollows before, and knew what they did.

And deep down, although he tried his damnedest to ignore it, he knew that somewhere, people were going to die before the night was over.

Hershel's bare feet pattered against the bare wooden floors of his house as he ran to his parents' room before, yelping in shock, he ran into the shins of a grown man. He looked up into the face obscured by shadow, crying now from the sheer terror of his certainty, and asked, in a small voice:

"Daddy, is that you?"

Within an instant the man was upon him, strong arms and tangled white hair wrapping around his shoulders.

"It's me, Hershel. You heard it too?"

The child nodded, lips quivering

"We're going to okay, sweetie. I need you to go with Mommy downstairs. Can you do that? Can you keep her safe until I get back?"

The boy nodded. "Okay. Daddy..."

"What?"

"I peed myself."

The man shook his head, the faintest possible trace of a smile gracing his features at his son's somber delivery of the news.

"That's okay. We'll clean you off after a shinigami comes to kill the hollow, okay? Now go to your Mommy. I'm going to go keep the house safe. Go!"

The boy took off running once more, headed for the house basement.

_Blue, blue, blue are my clothes,_

_ Blue, blue, blue's all I have._

_ I love anything that's blue_

_ Because my love's a sailor._

Hershel was bright for his age, and understood how ridiculous it was to be comforted by a song in a situation as dire as the one he found himself in, but repeated the verse anyway. The words let him pretend this was only one of the scary stories Imashinu-ojisan told him when they played together.

He thrust open the basement door and rushed into his mother's arms, the fabric of her nightgown absorbing his tears and muffling his whimpers.

She bolted the door and crouched next to her son.

"It'll be okay sweetie. I won't let anything hurt you. But I need you to be brave while Daddy protects us, okay?"

He nodded into the warm cotton of Henrietta's clothing.

**ѠѠѠ**

Muren stormed towards the front of the house, where his men had assembled outside. Imashinu took up position next to him, face set into a grim look of determination.

"Where is it?"

"We don't know, sir. Nobody can feel its presence, and it hasn't made any noise for a while now."

"There a shinigami on the way?"

"Probably, but there's something more pressing. Our messenger from earlier..."

"The blond one?"

"Yeah." Imashinu cast an eye over the crowd of guards and house members standing at attention for orders. "Muren, the building he was in...something broke out of it, clean through the wall. We think it might have been the hollow. And the body is gone."

The cool-headed commander absorbed this information calmly. "Noted." Striding forward and unsheathing his wakizashi, Muren raised his voice. "Defend the central house. A shinigami should be arriving soon to dispatch the hollow, so leave the outbuildings alone until they arrive. Get inside, and put a three-man team on every entrance, with sentries on the corners of the house. And if you see a blond man, kill him on sight." He beckoned a pair of men armed with a cudgel and a daitō, respectively. "You two, stand guard outside of the basement."

"Yes, oyabun!"

**ѠѠѠ**

Kilometers away, in one of his numerous subterranean laboratories, a figure sporting dramatic monochromatic body makeup and white haori of one of the Gotei Thirteen's captain leaned over a large monitor set into a console. On screen, it showed a series of graphs, as well as a live video feed.

In frame was a humanoid hollow, moving through the shadows of the civilized seventh district.

"An annelidan hollow with a faint and variable reiatsu signature, no apparent hollow hole in its natural form, and invasive detritivorous behavior resulting in reiatsu magnification and colonization similar to parasitic infection. Fascinating," murmured the man—if he was, in fact, a man—as he turned his head counterclockwise at an uncomfortably sharp angle.

A woman dressed in a black yukata and a wide white obi entered the room primly and quietly.

"Mayuri-sama, the hollow you've been tracking has moved into our division's jurisdiction. Shall I—"

Kurotsuchi turned and beat her savagely around the head and shoulders, teeth bared at her interruption. "I knew that, Nemu." He jerked her forward by a handful of her short dark hair. "Don't interrupt me unless you actually have something worthwhile to say!"

The woman's eyes remained downcast and her expression sad and politely distant. "Apologies, Mayuri-sama."

Her superior remained silent, turning back to his screen. "Get the specimen capture squad ready to go, but wait for my order. The subject's manifested some interesting behavior."

On screen, the hollowified corpse danced through a crowd of men and women, dealing blows powerful enough to cave chests and splinter bones. The walls of the Wile household were painted shockingly red, each individual droplet of scarlet seen and recorded by a fleet of small mobile cameras that had been dispatched to the site. Kurotsuchi chuckled and pressed a button on one of his twin gold earpieces to contact his daughter.

"Go capture it now."

"Yes, Mayuri-sama."

**ѠѠѠ**

The hollow was stronger than any the Ginito House's guards and members had ever fought before. Surrounded on all sides by sundered bodies and puddles of blood, it stood on ruined legs, swaying on the spot. Clouded eyes searched the cramped entryway, roving over bits of men that had been broken like toys dashed against the hard ground in an attempt to slay the abomination. It twitched as a tendril of ghastly white tissue broke the surface of the host's skin, curling upwards at the narrow tip. Several more wormed their way out of various open wounds as the body began to move, opening a jaw tacky with blood and viscera to screech once more, at a volume loud enough to be heard for kilometers.

Only meters away, Muren hid behind a corner leading into the room, suppressing his silvery reiatsu for all he was worth. He edged around the corner slowly, eyeing the retreating figure of his own creation. Its step hitched as it slowly moved through the house, searching for further prey. Muren operated in the state of icily effective analysis and decision-making he'd been raised on as he did a mental evaluation of his remaining resources.

_Shinigami should be en route, but there are no guards left, _he summarized, _and no capable house members are alive, except for me and Henrietta. Hershel needs protecting, but that thing hasn't gone near the basement yet, so they should be unharmed. _Silently hefting a small dao, he began moving towards the hollow, feet bare for the sake of stealth. He drew in a silent breath, and held it as the hollow came within his range, weapon raised for a killing blow.

In a blur of white-grey movement, the hollow turned suddenly, a protuberance of fractured bone driving beneath Muren's raised arm and into the center of his torso.

Grey eyes widened as the dao dropped to the floor with a reverberating clang. He grunted weakly, little more than a faint wheeze, as he looked disbelievingly at the hole in his chest that was still filled by the hollow's flesh. A masked face was canted to one side slightly, as if intrigued by the noise. The two empty creatures shared a brief glance.

Then the hollow ripped the spiked mass of flesh and bone back out and disappeared in a flicker of movement, loosing interest in the moribund man. Muren remained standing, desensitized to pain that he knew he should feel. His panicked emotions grew lethargic as he wavered on the spot, blood pouring from his wound in what amounted to a small torrent. He knew, as he gracelessly collapsed and his lifeblood pooled around his prostrate form, that he was going to die, and that he'd failed.

In a final, futile protest against his own mortality, he dragged himself forward on weakening arms, towards the basement where his wife and son still hid. As he moved, a sick smile was etched onto his face, bloody saliva pouring out of the harsh grin. Growing too cold to continue, Muren fought against the desire to put his head down on the cool floor.

"Henrietta!"came the thick, wet whisper.

Silence from the door not even a meter away.

"Henrietta!" he repeated hoarsely.

Then, from within, a terrified murmur. "Muren?"

The door began to open slowly, pushing aside a bloody corpse and painting an arc on the floor.

Muren opened his mouth to speak, but found himself bereft of the breath it would take. _No, don't._

The door opened, revealing Henrietta, distraught and wan. She looked quickly around, searching for her husband and would-be savior. "Muren?"

She looked down, seeking a small movement seen out of the bottom of her eye, and stifled a scream.

"Oh my god—Muren!" Shoulders shaking from the grief and horror she tried to control, his wife fell to a kneeling position, heedless of the taint of blood on her legs.

Her cries and Hershel's sobs were swallowed up by chill blackness.

_I'm sorry..._

**ѠѠѠ**

Henrietta clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes big and wet, as the hollow shrieked from upstairs. Hershel's lament continued unabated, begging his Daddy to wake up, to not leave them, to be okay. A broken sob left her own throat, and the hollow answered her with another cry from closer by.

Henrietta clenched her teeth and grabbed Hershel, all but throwing him into the basement, before quickly closing the door behind her. Hershel sat against a wall, crying softly and babbling to himself as the tears continued to pour. With brutality born of necessity, Henrietta clamped a hand over his mouth, looking up at the top of the basement stairs for movement. There was none.

She sighed, and wept as quietly as she could, body wracked by the emotions she'd thrust aside for Hershel's sake. The boy himself had gone still in her arms, offering only his breath as evidence of life.

Henrietta breathed in harshly, the sound shockingly loud in the lethal silence, as she heard movement from outside the door. For a beautifully irrational instant, she had hope that it might be Muren, that her husband might somehow be alive.

"Muren! I—"

A weight was smashed against the door, buckling the sturdy wood. Hershel jumped slightly, but otherwise remained unmoving. Another splintering noise issued forth, the darkness of the basement hiding the extent of the damage to the door. Henrietta staggered back with Hershel in tow, hands scrambling over tables and shelves lining the small and pitch-dark basement for a weapon, fingers stubbing against the handles of tools. Seizing on a small knife used for gardening, she turned to fight the same instant the hollow smashed aside the door. The corpse, now lacking most of a forearm, was covered with bloodless wounds and growths that had sprouted from the its skin.

Mind suspiciously blank, Henrietta wrapped two shaking hands around the handle of the blade, looking up at the monster cast in relief against what little light illumined the interior of the ruined home. With a shout, she leapt forward towards the hollow, her own reiatsu billowing around her in a miasma of fear and loathing lending strength to her limbs.

As she struck down, the blade glanced off of the bloodstained mask, biting into the hollow's soft shoulder and carving into rubbery tissue. Evincing no visible reaction, the hollow struck her aside in a blur of motion, throwing her against the wall. Henrietta, hair flying behind her, sprung back up despite her injuries and attacked once more, bringing her weapon down in a sloppy arc. This time, the hollow intercepted her blow, tiring of her interruption. There, in view of Hershel, it raised its one remaining hand, shattered beyond repair, and swung at the woman, clocking her in the side of her head and throwing her again into the same wall, where she fell limply fell to the ground with a thud. In the dark, the hollow stalked towards her and struck her unconscious body, already in a facsimile of death, again, and again, breaking bones and splitting skin. The woman was killed instantly, blood flying off the end of the hollow's arm as it continued its wide swings. Hershel remained slumped over for the ordeal, muttering quietly and repetitively from within the ramparts of his own protective world. Even as the monstrosity approached him, he retained his state of catatonia,though his muttering increased in intensity and speed.

As if in mockery of Muren's death, the corpse fell forward onto its knees, seeming to be enthralled by Hershel's bland and unmoving facial expression. Its armored jaw fell open; and out of that razor-lined abyss bloomed a final tribute to the lives it had taken that night. A pale mushroom-like bud edged past the hollow's teeth, curving upwards as it grew in size.

Hershel stared through it.

The growth split open, inflated by a rush of breath from inside the hollow. A ghostly grey dust was scattered through the air, where it floated on ambient air currents, wheeling and turning freely, an expression of freedom and joy running directly counter the environment it took place in. In the act of inhaling the powdery substance, Hershel became suddenly animated; the boy began blinking and twitching rapidly, and his soliloquy further increased in urgency, though it remained as quiet as ever. As he moved on the spot, white deposits began forming around his mouth and eyes.

From outside the ruined doors of the empty home, voices could be heard issuing orders.

The hollow swallowed the growth and lifted its head, seeming to scent the air despite the mostly featureless structure of its face.

Now ignoring Hershel, the thing rose and flitted out the door at speeds too high to be seen by the naked and untrained eye.

He stood suddenly, and walked forward, straight past his mother's battered corpse. The refrain from his favorite rhyme played on repeat, drowning out the both the horrors within himself and in his surroundings.

_White, white, white are my clothes..._

**ѠѠѠ**

Against a squadron of trained shinigami, the already-injured hollow stood no chance; it was summarily captured and restrained in a barrier, while a team clad in biohazard suits entered the domicile, probes and instruments at the ready.

During their thorough inspection and analysis, the following items were recorded as found on site, with no corresponding body: several sets of child's clothing, a stuffed doll, a child-sized bed, and several simple but well-made playthings and storybooks. The initial hypothesis drafted by Kurotsuchi Nemu posited that he had not been on site during the attack, a theory quickly disproven by available footage. That same footage showed a child moving at shunpo-level speeds away from the sight, surrounded by a hollow reiatsu, and covered in blood.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello, fans, new readers, and people who just accidentally clicked on the link to this chapter. This is the penultimate chapter in this work. After the final one, I'm planning on publishing the sixth chapter of _A Pair of Monsters. _Then, since I got two votes for and two votes against Shiba household drabbles, I'll publish one under a new story sometime immediately before or after chapter seven. Thank you, Kitsune Roy and Baldo, for your support of this story. The fact that multiple people take the time to read my crap (which should hopefully improve with time) instead of preparing for the apocalypse, planning their future, learning a new skill, or doing anything that would benefit someone other than me in some meaningful way really makes me feel happy. For the record, that's a pretty rare occurrence. **

**Mea culpa: The last OC, whose origin I detailed previously, was the product of a seed planted by Lord Ice of Termina and watered by copious amounts of ill feeling and boredom. **

**If I owned Bleach, IchiRuki would be canon, Orihime would be at least a moderately competent fighter, Yoruichi, Komamura, and Soi Fon would get more screen time, the whole Xcution debacle of an arc wouldn't have happened, and Ulquiorra would have gotten a hint of a happy ending of some kind. In addition, the vizards...oh, just forget it.**

**Inari II: To Steal a Future**

Inari quirked his lips thoughtfully at the options laid out before him. Beside him stood Mai, dressed in her best yukata and obi for the marketplace. Mirthful golden eyes flicked up to meet those of the old man he was bartering with.

"Two scoops of oats and a dried apple for fifty-five."

"No."

"A scoop of oats and a handful of dried berries."

"Fifty kan, or a trade."

His smile began its journey past the boundaries of social acceptability. "Hm. That's quite a bit for so little, don't ya think?"

"Don't matter what I think. I'm the only guy in town that'll sell you food, and you know it."

Inari stroked Mai's shoulder meditatively. "Looks like we're going out of town, then," he answered, grin still plastered on. He turned, Mai's hand in his, and began to return home, eyes glittering dangerously.

"Roy-onii-san, why didn't you buy the man's stuff?"

He looked down at the girl that fell somewhere between his sister and his daughter. "He's a cheat."

Mai's little eyebrows furrowed. She might not have grown passed ten yet, but she recognized hypocrisy when she saw it.

"But you're a cheat too."

"Yeah, but not like that," Inari sighed, rubbing his cramped stomach. "I don't steal things that people can't do without. Most people don't need to eat, so they don't really need much money."

Pouting, Mai muttered, "That's not any better."

He smiled lopsidedly at her. She looked back at him, modestly flowered yukata flapping in the breeze.

"What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

The pair continued in silence, still holding hands.

"Roy-onii-san, why do you steal things?"

"I think I talked about this with someone once. Short, pretty. Brown hair. Name was Mai, I think. Anyway, why won't you eat stolen food?"

Halting, Mai crossed her arms and glared at him. "You first."

_If a kid can be intimidating, she manages it, _mused Inari as he sat and leaned against the wall of a building. The issue was an old argument between them. Mai hated that he stole things, and he hated that she was stubborn enough to go on a hunger strike if he stole food.

"I do it because we need food, and you won't eat the stuff I steal, so I need to make money. Your turn."

"I won't eat it because stealing things is bad!" declared the girl with the resoluteness unique to children and political revolutionaries. "You said so yourself! And what if somebody else needs it?"

"They won't. Hardly anyone needs to eat around here, dummy," he responded, shaking his nearly empty jug of water. His smile disappeared entirely for the first time in days. "Here." He leaned against a wall for a rest, frowning at the dust on their clothes. "Drink this. You need to drink more water, so you won't get sick."

Accepting the drink, Mai took a sip before continuing her campaign for decency. "But still, we should get money some other way."

"By farming, imōto? We talked about that one too. That won't work, at least not anytime soon. Selling crops to the shinigami takes a big operation. So big, as a matter of fact, that even if we worked at it for a year or two, we still wouldn't be in business."

_Not that we don't have a few years,_ he added silently. Mai had aged normally for the first eight years of her life, give or take. Then, neatly two decades ago, she stopped growing, apparently without a reason. In the Rukongai, it wasn't that unusual to remain a child for a hundred years or more; in fact, it was common, especially in the impoverished districts. Yet it was still a constant source of concern for Inari, for both emotional and logistical reasons. As a child, Mai could only do so much, despite her extraordinarily canny and thoughtful nature. And he felt that she deserved to have a life. To find a husband, settle down, and live in peace with her family, away from thieves and the people they rubbed shoulders with. When he'd tried to explain the to her, her response had been honest to the point of infantility.

**ѠѠѠ**

_It was nighttime. Inari and Mai snuggled against each other around the sunken hearth in the center of the room they lived in, rendered lethargic by their unusually full stomachs. He looked down at Mai's awkwardly sprawled body, mulling over her growth with an unusually grave countenance._

_ "I'm worried about you," he had begun awkwardly. Verbally expressing honest concern was still a relatively new experience for him._

_ "Why?"_

_ "You're not growing like you're supposed to. If you don't grow up, you'll never be able to start a family or have a life of your own, and I don't want that for you."_

_ "But you're my family, onii-san," she had replied, sleep dimming her eyes._

_ "That's not what I mean."_

_ She had snuggled closer to him without speaking, already succumbing to sleep's embrace._

_ Disregarding the fact that she had stopped paying him any mind, Inari pressed on, more for himself than for her. Tangled feelings like this still troubled him sometimes; and when they did, he took to his old recourse._

_ "It's just that I want you to be safe. Safe as you can be, at least. Living with me won't be good for you in the long run. You're not old enough for it now, but when you hear about the things that I've done...any decent person would want to keep a wall between the two of us."_

_ He frowned again, earnestly; the expression felt wrong on his face._

_ "Fuck it. I'll see if any of the elders around here know how to help with this, I guess." He yawned. "You know, I've been around a lot, but I never loved anyone, I don't think. But you deserve more. You're so _perfect, _and _good, _and _clean. _I'm all dusty and stained." His eyelids started to drift shut._

_ "I doubt it'll ever wash out."_

**ѠѠѠ**

When the smiling man and his companion arrived at their destination, it was already nearing nightfall. They hadn't moved up through the districts—a dense bamboo forest which would have complicated the trip beyond the boundaries of acceptability comprised a large portion of the next. In lieu of such an undertaking, they had followed the dusty streets of the Thirtieth District, on the way to find someone who had food for sale. En route, Inari had surreptitiously pickpocketed several people for change as he brushed past them; an act that never failed to earn a sad and irritated look from Mai. The years she had spent as a child had warped her personality somewhat, placing her firmly in between the bordering realms of childhood, with its attendant simplicity, and adulthood, a rough territory guarded by critical faculties and weariness of the world. The latter's strong presence in Mai's behavior was enough to kindle a spark of discomfort and regret in Inari. In silence, they continued, only partially sure of their destination.

A while after the pair had begun feeling lightheaded from hunger, Mai wordlessly tugged on Inari's sleeve, pointing at a small shop on the side of the street advertising food for sale.

"There, alright. Let's see what they have. Hope there's some meat. We haven't had any beef or chicken or anything in ages."

He slid the door open quickly and quietly, ushering Mai in before closing it behind him. The room was windowless, and instead relied on lanterns for lighting. Across from the entrance sat an old woman behind a counter laden with the finest fare the District had to offer—that is, some dried fruits and vegetables, a large basin of live eels, and assorted grains. Mai let out a tiny huff of disappointment at their options as Inari stepped up to haggle.

"Good evening," he began, dressing up in his best charming smile. "We're looking for some food. How much for two of those eels?"

The woman, a shrewd veteran of at least one hundred years, appraised him before speaking. "Thirty-five kan each, for starters."

Inari cursed silently, though he remained as outwardly polite as ever. _I have sixty-some. If that._

"Can I get you to bring it down to thirty for me? My little sister and I haven't eaten for a few days." He slumped his shoulders just enough to subliminally broadcast submission and entreaty.

The shopkeep blinked slowly, as if her age and inexperience with the feeling of hunger had disconnected her from the urgency of preventing one's own starvation. "You can get out."

Inari looked over at Mai, smile unfaltering, growing even. His eyes met those of the old woman, and his mouth turned upwards further, crinkling his eyes almost shut. "Alright then. One eel. Slice it for me, please." Recalling an empty grill he had seen outside the store, he added, "And if you could grill it up as kabayaki, I'll pay you more."

"How much?"

"Twenty-five kan."

The woman accepted his payment, ignoring his ghastly smile, and began the preparations to grill the eel by gutting and butterflying it on a board outside her shop while Inari struck a fire in the metal bowl of the grill. Mai stood by motionlessly, watching the adults work. She felt guilty that Inari had decided to spend the rest of their money on a dinner for her. Not because she worried that he would go hungry, but because she knew he would steal food to fill his own stomach, which upset her. She wrung her hands together, mouth twisted into a frustrated pucker.

Inari stepped away from the woman as she skewered and began grilling the eel. He crouched beside Mai and brushed a stray lock of hair over her ear. "What's wrong, imōto?"

Mai knew well enough that trying to keep things from Inari was futile. He was simply too sharp to get past without having one's secret thoroughly sussed out of hiding like a vole from its den. Mai looked down at her bony hands, lightly tanned skin conflicting with the purple and pink of her yukata. Quietly, she answered, "I don't like it when you steal food."

His smile melted away. He knew he would never change his ways, but damn if Mai didn't make him want to. "I know." He smiled again, eyes crinkling shut with half-sincere humor. "But don't worry. I'll be careful, and I won't hurt anybody. I promise."

She nodded in response, unconsoled.

That night, the pair huddled together inside a small, single-room hostel for the night, too tired to return home.

_There's something about moving between districts, _decided Inari as he lay awake, easing Mai out of his arms. _It tires you out, somehow. I've never even heard of people who could do it without needing a rest afterward. Except for shinigami._

Mai stirred slightly as he delicately laid her arm on the floor. The moonlight soaking through a shoji door illuminated her face. Inari looked down at her, torn between a smile and a scowl. With a quiet snort, he turned and walked silently out of the room.

**ѠѠѠ**

_Click._

The primitive latch of the shop slipped open easily with the aid of a thin metal tool. Opening the shop door, Inari smiled the predatory grin he reserved for these nighttime sojourns. On a deep level, the grey area between right and wrong attracted him. It felt, he had once thought, like hiding in a shadow. Reassuring, in an ironic way.

Padding forward on bare feet, Inari surveyed his nearly lightless surroundings. He had revisited the shop from earlier that night, determined to get his money's worth. Passing a hand over the wall as he moved, pausing when he came to a fusuma panel. Deep, rasping snores issued from behind it. Mentally noting the woman's location, he continued forward, rolling his feet from ball to heel as he circled the counter, heading towards the area the woman had stored her goods in.

Pausing, he allowed his eyes to further adjust to the darkness of the shelving behind the long table. Inari squinted and blinked, trying in vain to coax shapes out of the shadows wrapping everything in soft blackness. It remained too dark to see.

_Great, _he commented to himself earnestly. _I love a challenge._

**ѠѠѠ**

In the darkness of a small chamber bound by paper walls, an old woman stirred, awakening to the sensation of an uncomfortably full bladder. She shuffled into a sitting position, and pushed herself off of her cushion with a groaning insult directed at her joints. She was growing old, she knew, and had long since reached the stage of looking to death as a soothing inevitability. Her husband had passed just the year previously.

Less than three meters away, Inari froze at the sound of movement, golden eyes widening simultaneously to an excited grin. Despite his lifetimes' worth of experience, the thrill of danger never ceased to fascinate him. As the shopkeep opened her door to allow moonlight to enter her shop, he pressed against the shelving of the counter, unable to smother his delight at the game. His grin faltered slightly when he noticed that an empty ceramic chamber pot sat at the back of the counter shelving he sat behind. There were very few reasons an old woman might get up in the middle of the night. He was looking at one of them.

Muttering to herself, the woman began trying to strike a flint at the head of the counter he hid behind. For an instant, orange sparks cast the shop in a feeble light before dying out once more.

Inari's heart leapt into his throat. Operating with the efficiency of a seasoned criminal, he considered his options, brilliant mind racing to formulate a plan.

_Can't stay here. Only way out is over the counter. She strikes the flint every few seconds. _His thoughts were quick, disjointed, and razor sharp. _I don't have any more time._

Another burst of warm light scattered over the shop, and something hit the floor with a clatter. The woman cursed again, and Inari moved, graceful and silent. He arced over the counter and dashed out of the moonlight, flattening himself again into the corner of the room closest to the door and across from his victim.

Myopically searching out the source of whatever she had heard, the old woman called, "Hello? Who's there?" The wick of the candle caught with a final strike, and the shop flared with a light that seemed like the sun to Inari's eyes. Moving before she could catch site of him, Inari skipped behind the fusuma panels that surrounded the woman's cushion, heart throbbing in his throat. The woman hadn't seen him.

But still, she screamed for help. "Thief! Thief! Help!"

_Shit. _Inari burst forward, towards the room's single door, pale with fear. He had only cleared the storefront when a man took a swing at him, a haymaker intended to knock him to the ground. Hopping to the side, Inari cleared the man's reach with only centimeters to spare, and poured on the speed, bitterly disappointed with his failure. His mind was still occupied with that disappointment when a second man came forward out of a thin alleyway and slammed a blocky fist into his face. Already weakened from hunger, Inari's awareness cut out like an extinguished candle. He crumbled limply backwards, regretfully aware of how he'd failed Mai.

**ѠѠѠ**

When he woke up, Mai was there, sitting at the door of his cell. A peek out of the barred window of his cell showed it to be partially underground, with a small window near the ceiling at ground level. The time seemed to be near noon. Mai stood and came up to the bamboo bars separating them., expression stony and unforgiving. Inari wasn't surprised to see her there; Mai was canny, even for one as old as she was.

_Not like this was the first time, either._ They'd both experienced this before, and fit into their roles like hands into well-made gloves.

"I'm sorry, kid."

The familiar sense of shame, an uncharacteristic self-recrimination; that disgust he associated with behavior that reminded him of his father's failures.

"Onii-san, I don't have any money to pay your fine."

The weariness of someone aged far beyond her considerable years, and the sadness of one whose idol has failed them.

"I know." The smile was there again; a bitter, self-effacing one.

"The magistrate's gotta decide what to do with you."

Inari hung his head, letting the curtain of rust-colored and dirty hair insulate him from Mai's eyes. "See if you can talk to him. Tell 'em that I'm your older brother, and that we both need food."

"I will." Mai left without another word.

As she walked away in her best yukata, now dust-stained and wrinkled, Inari called out again. "Sorry about this."

The girl, frozen on the cusp of becoming a beauty in her own right, didn't respond.

**ѠѠѠ**

Inari licked his lips slowly. The pain from the cracks that had appeared as a result of dehydration gave him something to focus on other than the sun's movement across the sky or the town drunk locked in the cell across from his. The corners of Inari's lips turned up once more, as he considered his prospects for release.

_This was the first time in this district, so maybe I'll get lucky and they'll let me out soon. I didn't even steal anything, so it's not like I did anything major._

Scuffing, irregular footsteps sounded down the corridor outside his cell; the first noise Inari had heard in hours that didn't come from his neighbor or himself. Inari came to the barred door and looked out curiously, excited to see someone. It wasn't Mai, he knew; the footsteps were too slow for it to be her. Inari placed a hand on the bars, fingers curling around the bamboo loosely.

The footsteps echoed in the dry space.

Passing between shafts of light thrown from ground-level windows, barred like his own, came the form of the old woman, white hair pulled into a bun and held in place with a simple wooden rod. Her face was unreadable. Dark, sunken eyes almost buried in folds of wrinkled skin looked into his own, golden and unusually dull.

Delving into a small wooden box she carried, the old woman handed him a cup and proceeded to fill it with water. It was hot and tasted of dust, but it fell on Inari's lips like the sweetest wine or cordial. He poured two servings of it down his throat in the space of a minute before meeting his benefactor's eyes, gold on black.

"Why'd you come here?"

The shopkeep ignored the inquiry until she settled herself, squaring arthritic shoulders and straightening her slumped posture.

"I wanted to lay eyes on the hoodlum that broke into my shop. You're the one that tried to shortchange me on my eels," sniffed the woman.

"The water?" prompted Inari, disregarding the woman's statement.

She regally lifted her chin, a queen in simple clothes, and answered, "I thought I might get thirsty, but you needed it more than me. _Some _people know how to do more than just take from others."

Inari bared his teeth in the rictus he wore only when angry and defensive, a lip-splitting grimace that bared the majority of his teeth and nearly closed his eyes. Knowing that fewer words enhanced the sense of unease kindled in others, he responded with a simple syllable.

"Oh?"

The woman nodded vigorously, either unaware of or unconcerned with the Inari's blatant violation of social norms. "That's right. You, boy, are the reason it's so hard to make a living out here. If everyone was like you, you know what we'd have? Nothing. I could have..."

Inari elected to disregard her diatribe, instead considering Mai's likely whereabouts. She hadn't returned, probably because she was just too pissed with Inari, but she wouldn't have left the district either.

_ If she even could, _added Inari, after a moment's thought. Regardless of physical distance, interdistrict travel sapped one's energy more than normal exercise. He knew of one man who had supposedly met his death by exhaustion after traveling through several districts without pausing for rest. He considered the old shopkeep's motives for coming to see him. She had all week to see him, most likely. An answer suggested itself, one he was quick to check.

_Oh my. She's in full on tiger matriarch mode, _commented Inari for his own amusement.

"Ma'am," he began, "my baby sister's with you, isn't she?"

The woman continued speaking for several seconds before the question properly registered. A note of iron entered her voice as she answered.

"She is. I'm keeping a tab on her, you know. Everything she eats and drinks, you're going to pay for, with labor or money. Mai's with me on that one, sweet girl, so you aren't going anywhere until her debt's been paid, boy."

His smile relaxed slightly. "Fine. If you pay my bounty, I'll work that off too. No funny business, I promise."

"No, no." The woman took a delicate, careful step forward from the wall she was leaning against. "You can serve your time. All two months of it."

Inari shrugged placidly; it had been a while, but prison wasn't anything he hadn't been through before.

**ѠѠѠ**

During the time of his internment, Inari and Mai talked earnestly about their future for the first time, in a roundabout, slow manner. Four weeks later, after seeing several men and women clad in the black shikakusho of the shinigami military pass his prison cell, Inari raised the subject with a single sentence. It made sense at the time; their problems, each and every one of them, would be solved in one fell swoop.

"Imōto, what do ya think about becoming shinigami?"


End file.
